name

name.

Personal identifying names are found in every known culture, and they often pass from one language to another. Hence the occurrence of Native American place names throughout the United States and the occurrence among American families of names of various linguistic origins (e.g., Roosevelt, Hoover, La Follette, La Guardia). The use of personal names apparently began at a very early stage in human history, with single names of persons presumably coming into use earlier than double ones; in the Bible double names are mainly confined to those who have common forenames, e.g., Judas Barsabas and Mary Magdalene. Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian names were generally formed of two common words, e.g., Hrothgar (Roger) meaning "fame-spear."

English surnames developed in the late Middle Ages and, apart from patronymics (Adams, Jefferson, Jackson, Harrison), have a variety of origins; they come from places (Lincoln, Garfield, Cleveland), from trades (Tyler, Taylor), from personal traits (Stout, Black), and from the calendar (Noël, May). The Irish Mac, meaning "son," and ua, meaning "grandson," were attached to family and clan names as Mac,Mc, or M' and O' (see OO,15th letter of the alphabet. It is a usual symbol for a mid-back, rounded vowel, rather like the first part of oi. Such a vowel was represented by omicron [Gr.,=little o], its formal and positional correspondent in the Greek alphabet......Click the link for more information.), respectively. The O' was apparently not used in Scotland. The Welsh, in translating their patronymic (ap=son of) settled on English forms ending in s, hence Welsh names such as Davis (from David) and Jones (from John). In Icelandic the surname is patronymic, and it changes from generation to generation. French de, when written separately, like German von, is deemed to mark a noble name.

Although in most European cultures the surname follows the given name, Hungarian names tend to reverse this order, as do names in Chinese, Japanese, and other languages. Spanish practice varies by country; one common usage gives a surname combining those of each parent, e.g., Serrano y Domínguez or Serrano Domínguez, for one whose father was a Serrano and mother a Domínguez. In Russian the middle name consists of the father's forename with a patronymic suffix, e.g., Nikolayevich. In the Roman republic three names were used, the forename (praenomen), of which there were fewer than 20; the gens or tribe name (nomen); and finally the family name (cognomen); e.g., Caius Julius Caesar, or Caius of the Caesar family of the Julian gens. An additional name (agnomen) might be added as a nickname or honor, e.g., Africanus, for victory in Africa, in the case of Scipio. Amharic names are concatenations of the child's given name and the father's given name. Native American names often referred to elements in nature or attributed special traits to the person.

In the Western world a woman traditionally adopted the family name of her husband at the time of her marriage. Since the mid-20th cent. women in the United States have increasingly adopted the practice of retaining their maiden, or parental, surname beyond the time of marriage; other women and some couples have adopted surnames that combine those of each partner.

In many cultures the name is of supernatural significance. Besides animistic commonplaces such as naming a child after a lucky person or a wily animal, there are widespread taboo practices, such as not naming a child after a living relative or changing the name on the death of a namesake or avoiding the name of a family totem. In some cultures the name given the child at birth is temporary and is replaced with another at puberty, or whenever the individual attains a new age gradeage grade and age set,differentiation of social role based on age, commonly found in small-scale societies of North America and East Africa......Click the link for more information..

In the Judeo-Christian tradition the name has great significance, especially in the case of divine names; thus Jews did not utter the name of God. The ancient Hebrew ben (son of) was affixed to the father's given name to form a family name, although in some religious practices a child was referred to by a formula that substituted the mother's given name for the father's. Christians have traditionally baptized children with an appropriately Christian name, especially the name of a saint, henceforth the patron; an additional name is taken at confirmation. The Puritans discouraged the use of any but biblical first names. The practice of changing names by court action is commonly adopted in order to afford a clear record.

Name

(in logic), a linguistic expression which refers to an entity ( proper, or singular, name) or a set (class) of entities (common name). An entity is interpreted in a broad sense as anything to which we may refer.

Among proper names a distinction is made between names of individual entities, such as “Pushkin” or “the author of Titus Andronicus” and names of classes, for example, “humanity” as the proper name of the class of all people. Proper names of classes of entities should be distinguished from common names, for example, “man.” The name of a class is applicable to the whole class as a single entity but not to each individual element of the class, whereas common names may be applied to each element of the appropriate class but not to the class as a whole. Simple, or elementary, names—that is, names that do not consist of other names or other meaningful linguistic expressions—are distinguished from complex names, that is, names constructed from significant parts (“humanity” is a simple name, but “contemporary humanity” is a complex name). In formalized languages a constant is an analogue of a proper name, with individual constants corresponding to proper names of entities and class constants to proper names of classes; variables and terms are analogues of common names. Proper names in formalized languages are subdivided into primary proper names, which are given specific meanings, and (complex) names, which are constructed from primary names, that is, names whose structure reflects the way in which they refer to entities.

Names and the relations associated with them, primarily the relation between the name and the entity referred to by the name—the referring, or naming relation—are studied in logical semantics. This branch of logic analyzes specifically what is known as the semantic triangle—the relations among three entities: the name, the meaning of the name, and that which the name refers to (or the set of entities referred to).

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